Curated Stories May 6, 2010

In 2000, Cox Communications Arizona branch hadnt met a budget for three years, their PL was in shambles and morale was in the cellar. Today, the branch models organizational effectiveness, and is the U.S.-based…

One of the virtues of using Google’s products are the connections you get to the search giant’s other applications. For example, I love that my Gmail account can connect to iGoogle, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, an…

What can Procter Gamble learn from Method, the San Francisco purveyor of natural home products? How about Fidelity Investments — could it profit from observing Zurichs Sustainable Asset Management? What less…

I am an unabashed partisan of the Web — its architecture, culture, and
content. I’m proud to have played a very small part in shaping bits of the
machinery and having contributed probably too many words…

Social media has invaded health care from at least three fronts: innovative startups, patient communities and medical centers. …

Apple may be charging a premium for placements on its new mobile ad platform, but it looks like brands that use iAds will also have access to features that no other ad network can deliver.
According to an emai…

Does your workplace have a social media policy? Thousands of companies do and you can view some of them here at Social Media Governance.

I picked a few at random – first Ball State University (sinc…

Last year, we reported that the Wikimedia Foundation and PediaPress had partnered to allow you to assemble your own wiki pages from Wikipedia and print them out in book form. Today, the feature is being extende…

From the people who brought you MakeMeBabies and PicTreat comes In20Years, the web app that’s sure to give the plastic surgery industry a swift kick in the you-know-what. In 20 Years is basically what it so…

Dan Rayburn submits: Over the weekend I read another few dozen articles on the whole Apple (AAPL) and Adobe (ADBE) debate and probably read through a thousand comments. Some of the posts I read were really g…

Recently I got a great question from an Online Visibility Secrets student. She was watching the Business Blog Mastery videos and wondered about my comment that your business blog should be the hub, or home ba…

by Josh Bernoff

Charlene Li, my coauthor on Groundswell, former Forrester analyst, and founder of Altimeter Group, has written a new book, Open Leadership. You should read it.As much as I hate to start any p…

Social networks are a dime a dozen. Many of them focus on the social, or the networking, independent of other aspects that might bring people together. Its no big surprise that many of these social networks fai…

Facebook’s privacy Chernobyl, part umptybillion. Snip from Macworld: “If you visit certain sites while logged in to Facebook, an app for those sites will be quietly added to your Facebook profile. You don’t hav…

Research suggests that if you think you can see well, your eyesight will improve. In one of several fascinating experiments, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer showed a group of normal-sighted subjects a reverse…

The Federal Communications Commission today laid out its plan for solidifying its authority to regulate broadband after an appeals court seemingly neutered it by ruling that the FCC didn’t have the authority…

Many often wonder about whether social media is scalable, especially in light of the benefits social media delivers in terms of connections between …

The Sun, back in 2008:

A plot to sell intimate stolen photographs of Prince William and
his girlfriend Kate Middleton has been smashed — thanks to The
Sun. The snaps showed the pair relaxing on a Cari…

This morning during his keynote talk at Web 2.0 Expo, Tim O’Reilly took a look at the State of the Internet Operating System — a term he uses to describe the intertwined web services like search, the socia…

Today during Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Hillary Mason, Bit.ly’s lead data scientist took the stage and offered up some interesting data about the service. Her focus was what our data usage says about the…

I’m fascinated by successful people, those who say, “This is how I want my life to look,” and then they go create it. I find them interesting because most people don’t live like that. Most people, my…

After Facebook’s most recent privacy kerfuffles — can you believe users were able to read each other’s private chats? — it’s once again become fashionable to say you’re going to quit the social network.
Engad…

See a photo of David, his bio, Part 1 of this QA, Part 2, and Part 3.

QA with David Kennedy, Question 5:

Q: What future trends or directions to do foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next…

Google has released a new version of Google Goggles with an exciting new feature: translation.

According to the company’s blog, the new feature will be able to read five different, Latin-based languages and tr…

An excerpt from Jason’s latest column in Inc. Magazine: “Why Is Business Writing so Awful?”

When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you’re saying,…

Does leadership really matter? The executive director of a new foundation asked me that question earlier this year. At first I thought he was joking — after all, helping nonprofits attract and develop passion…

If you feel like you’d pay closer attention to the ongoing evolution of social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, if only you had the time, this post is for you. The triumvirate of key soci…

Much has been said about social media “experts” ranging from Hallelujah, they exist! to “(they) are the cancer..and must be stopped.“

These diverse responses are perfectly understandable in a…

Posted by Dennis SellersATT and Apple probably have a quid pro quo in place that has extended the mobile carrier’s exclusive deal with the iPhone in exchange for heavily-discounted data plan pricing for the i…

Daniel sez, “I had the pleasure of being on a panel at Penguicon this past weekend with Mary Robinette Kowal, and we talked about adapting a novel to a podcast.

It was a fun chat (especially for 9AM on a Sunda…

It seems like every week we learn about a new tip to enhance the Windows 7 taskbar, and it’s hard to keep them all straight. Here’s the complete power user’s g…

It’s the end of another school year for a lot of PR students. Most of you probably have internships lined up. The rest of you must be more interested in lounging by the pool this summer. Or…

How to connect with customersView more presentations from Valeria Maltoni.

This morning, I’m the keynote presenter at the J. Boye Conference in Philadelphia for the online communication track. We’re talking…

Last week LinkedIn announced a feature that we’re all familiar with. Following is a social media verb that has been synonymous with Twitter and to some extent Facebook when you would “fan” company. Now yo…

When choosing a business model I always recommend that it be something that you are passionate about. It seems that when passion is lacking, it is harder to get up in the morning and to do the things that you n…

A couple of days ago I wondered if it’s OK for freelance writing bloggers to talk like they speak. After all, blogging is a much more casual form of writing than what most of us are used to. While some p…

The Referral Engine OverviewThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing
My new book, The Referral Engine – Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, ships next week so I thought I would share some of the key points…

Mike Kuczkowski, a senior Edelman executive, ran a marathon on Sunday. He finished in a rather unremarkable 5 hours, walking when he hit the wall at mile 17. But for those of us who knew Mike as an inveterate s…

Have you heard the latest social-media joke?
Mr. T, a ninja and a talking horse walk into a bar. Mr. T orders a Courvoisier and takes a seat. The talking horse starts to order, but the bartende…

ATT picked up six more months of exclusive access to Apples iPhone thanks to the data plan it offers for the iPad, says Broadpoint AmTech tech analyst Brian Marshall.
In the run up to the debut of the iPad, Bri…

We hate to confess how many tweets we glance at in a day, many of them tips for writers. Over time the consistent usefulness and wisdom of the Twitter stream from one elizabethscraig brought us to her blog, My…

The other day I received an email which makes me think I’m doing all the right things. What was that email? Someone sent me a message noting they didn’t like my content, it was too critical and controve…

For teams who use Facebook and Twitter for business or organizations purposes, HootSuite has rolled out a slew of new features for assigning and sharing tasks.HootSuite’s Assignment function lets managers as…

As part of a Data Privacy Day report, Microsoft commissioned a study of over 1,200 hiring and recruitment managers. In one segment, they asked what kinds of si…

I was having a a few conversations on twitter last week. It was clear that more than one person needed a little bit more explanation about how to put some of the tips I mentioned into action, so here are 6 qui…

Last week 150 PR practitioners gathered in Palm Springs at the PRSA Western District conference. One of the keynote panels was about the media and their needs in today’s Web 2.0 world. After hearing f…

Note from Ann: While SEJ features regular round-ups and reviews of various useful (mostly free) tools, it is always great to check lists shared by others. I for one found a few new tools I am willing to check o…

Getting the corporate culture clear helps make a social business strategy viable

Conversations about social media in business often start with questions about tools. “Should we have a Facebook page…

Introducing a coordinated, vibrant social media effort into an organization depends on more than an “official” group creating content. Ideally multiple and varied people throughout the organization …

An interesting chart released from Morgan Stanley Research this morning shows that during the month of April – the month the iPad launched – netbook sales stalled. Did the iPad really have that much impact on a…

When you’re about to launch a new product or service, you need some buzz.
Sure, you can use your blog to mention your plans a few times leading up to the launch. You’ll probably ask some fellow bloggers t…

Every industry has its own lingo. There are accepted words that everyone in the industry understands and that have become so pervasive that they become hard not to use in normal conversation. Librarians and boo…

Recently, my friend John Saddington invited me to consider becoming an advisor to a new software startup call SoChurch. John is one of the most tech-savvy people I know. He is the Creative Web Director of North…

As one of the nation’s largest energy providers, Duke Energy initially saw opportunities in social media because its customers wanted more mobile messaging during power outages.
Today, rain o…

Reputation management is becoming a much bigger concern through local business listing (or geo-listings) than in the past. While consumers were open to use blogs, forums and other social community tools to…

The long awaited book about the first few years of Facebook is almost here. You can pre-order David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World for the Kind…

Douglas “My Guns Are Bigger Than Yours” Crockford sent us a pointer to Moonwatcher’s post on entitled “My MacBook Pro runs JavaScript 26.7x as fast as my iPad“.

After Moonwatcher ran SunSpider on the…

Storytelling is more important than ever. Long gone are the days when a story was just a simple anecdote or side bar. Today, stories are prominently positioned at the forefront of business communications. Great…

It’s been almost two weeks since Facebook’s F8 developer conference, and we’re still talking about the social networking site’s announcements and the repercussions for the Web. While users’ privacy concerns con…

Oh dear. From the “there’s never been a better time to worry about the future of civilization” department comes the disturbing news that one in 10 people under the age of 25 deem it perfectly OK to send…

A month or so ago, I told you how I’d finally jumped on the location check-in train, and mockingly asked if boring married people (like me) should be checking in on services like Foursquare and Gowalla. In the…

Last week, well-known web/iPhone developer Joe Hewitt decided to rant on Twitter. His target? The state of web development. In 25 or so tweets, Hewitt ripped apart the state of the industry. Obviously, his impa…

There are a ton of social media monitoring tools out there, from the enterprise class tools, including Radian 6, Alterian and Scoutlabs to consumer-focused apps, including one I’d long relied on, TweetBeep, whi…

I watch people beat their marketing prospects all day. It’s easiest to watch them do it via Twitter. Pick any marketing you feel is filling your stream, click into them, and watch their recent tweets. If it�…

Yahoo launched a new $75-$85 million ad campaign (a subset of the $100 million campaign CEO Carol Bartz launched last year) that positions Yahoo as the single destination for all your online needs. Its slogan:…

Does anyone read Time or Newsweek (being sold to anyone who will take them) any more? And when they disappear, who will really miss them? The problem is that they are both slow and general. The world, on the ot…

A fresh crop of marketing students is about to be graduated from the nation’s universities so at this time of year I normally get calls from friends, and friends of friends, asking me to talk to their kids a…

Something a little different today – a few weeks ago I came across the wonderful Jan Jacks of Perfect Verse. Jan (who isnt a client, so thats not why Im plugging her!) writes personal and bus…

This is part four in a multi-part series on how Océ is implementing Enterprise 2.0 within their organization. Part one covered the Business Drivers of Enterprise 2.0, part two covered Making the Push for…

Does this sound familiar?Within 12 months of its invention, 1,200 companies entered the radio “business” in some form or fashion.So said Malcolm Gladwell in a stirring speech given Monday to the AAA Annual…

There was a big hoo-ha last week as eMarketer’s recent research concluded that portals remain effective ad platforms. This came as Yahoo! was all over the press for attributing their financial recovery to a…

A few weeks ago we mentioned an open door of opportunity for startups that could provide a solution to one the Internet’s longest enduring problems: comment management. Shortly after that article was published,…

For anyone still wondering whether Apple plans to give its new iAds a competitive advantage over other mobile ad networks on the iPhone and iPad, just take a look at the slide above. It was attached to an ema…

Teens’ cellphone habits may have thwarted sales of Microsoft’s Kin before they even begin, according to new study. Even though Kin requires a $70 smartphone plan with no built-in text messaging, Pew Research s…

Between late January and early March of this year, BART riders were asked to take a survey about the partnership between BART and Foursquare. The results are interesting. Not really interesting in substance, bu…

You’ve probably spotted the Domino’s Pizza Holdouts TV commercials that highlight the pizza chain’s efforts to get everyone to try their new pizza. The company has just launched a complementary social me…

Filed under: AppleAdvertisingAge confirms today what the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week: advertising with Apple’s iAd service won’t be cheap. Most advertising agencies charge either a flat rate per t…

Flowtown has posted an infographic illustrating cellphone use among teenagers. The data, which is sourced from Pew Internet Research, visually underscores something we’ve known for a long time: Teens love to…

Adobe’s much-beleaguered Flash is about to take another hit and online documents are finally going to join the Web on a more equal footing. Today, most documents (PDFs, Word docs, Powerpoint slides) can mos…

Today, I spoke to Michael Hyatt, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the seventh largest trade book publi…

This morning, Foursquare made a subtle but significant change to each and every venue page that could have major implications for business owners: the addition of Facebook “Like” buttons.Now Foursquare use…

Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Exclusive: Gmail Ditched By Major University — IT executives at the school say Googles commitment to privacy and security doesnt meet their standards. — In a blow…

I think we can all agree that Legos are the best toy ever. And YouTube videos in which Lego people act out movies and such are the perfect way to break up a dreary day. Well, put in your headphones and close t…